For the 20 New England colleges with the highest paid graduates, check out the ranking, plus starting and mid-career salaries, below.

Brown University ties with Harvard

In PayScale's new ranking, Providence's own Brown University tied with Harvard University for the #2 spot in New England (#8 nationally) for highest salary potential (as indicated by PayScale's mid-career salary figure). The second-highest scoring Rhode Island college on the salary ranking was Bryant University, which ranked #136 nationally with a mid-career salary of $88,900.

Rhode Island colleges + salaries

Following Brown and Bryant were:

#146 Providence College, with a starting salary of $49,100 and mid-career salary of $88,100;

#223 RISD, with a starting salary of $39,400 and a mid-career salary of $83,500;

How much is that first degree really worth?

To arrive at its rankings, PayScale focused on the salaries of bachelor degree holders--not those who have gone on to gain higher degrees. For 2013-14, PayScale tabulated data from 1.4 million bachelor-degree only, full-time civilian employees working in the US (self-employed, project-based, and contract employees not included). The sample size for each school included ranges from ~100 profiles to several thousand profiles, depending largely upon the size of the school.

Assessing salaries

For assessing graduating salary, Payscale tabulated data for full-time employees with five years of experience or less in their career or field who held a bachelor’s degree and no higher degrees; the typical (median) starting employee was 25 years old and had two years of experience. For mid-career salary (the basis of the rankings), Payscale assessed salaries of full-time employees with at least 10 years of experience in their career or field who held a bachelor’s degree and no higher degrees; typical (median) mid-career employee was 42 years old with 15 years of experience.

For its assessment of salary, PayScale combined base annual salary or hourly wage, bonuses, profit sharing, tips, commissions, overtime, and other forms of cash earnings, as applicable. (Salary did not include equity compensation, which can be a significant portion of pay for some executive and high-tech job. In addition, salary did not include cash value of retirement benefits, or value of other non-cash benefits, e.g. healthcare.) For more on PayScale's methodology, go here.

What were the Top 20 New England colleges with the highest paid graduates in the new ranking? Check out the ranking, plus starting and mid-career salaries, below.